The awful reality that huge train engines can be dangerous was apparent again Wednesday morning (April 29, 2015) as Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikens met the media. She was reporting on the death of a 31-year-old man at Union Station yesterday. He was dragged some distance by a GO engine as a 12-car train left the station. How did it happen? It seems there is video of the incident and Ms. Aikens noted that the man was wearing a back pack. It caught something on the train. It is another instance where people wearing back packs sometimes forget how these useful carriers can get them in trouble. In any case, the police are still looking into the death but it seemed from Ms. Aikens remarks that Metrolinx considers it to be a tragic accident. “We all have to take personal responsibility,” she said two or three times. Some riders have commented that the platforms at Union Station are not wide enough but the question will also be asked: “How wide is wide enough?” if the people are not sufficiently cautious. These are hard questions in the context of such a terrible event but necessary.
Zipper merging: Why isn’t this routine taught in Ontario?
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Matt Allard
In some parts of the United States and Canada traffic officials are encouraging motorists to do the most obvious thing in the world when there is a lane closure. Namely, follow the simple rule of letting cars from each lane go through one after another. It appears to have improved the movement of traffic in cities like Minnesota and Saskatoon by a stunning 40 percent. The simple rule of one by one produces a routine in which everyone knows the drill. It is on the mind of a Winnipeg City Councillor who wants to make it the traffic norm in that town. Today, according to the CBC, St. Boniface Councillor Matt Allard will put forward a motion asking the city administration to explore the practice of zippering. Zippering, also known as zipper merging, happens when one or more lanes on a multi-lane road is closed. Instead of moving into the open lane as soon as possible, people who are “zipper merging” wait until the last possible moment to move over, and drivers alternate letting cars from the closed lane in. If all goes according to plan, the cars merge like teeth on a zipper. Allard said he wouldn’t want a law making zippering mandatory, but he would rather see a “shift in Winnipeg driving culture” that would be encouraged by public awareness campaigns and signage. It is a matter of education — like the way we learned not to block the box. Bulldog, CBC
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How schools, parents are used by OSSTF, government
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It is an older story but has been given newer insight here. The enormous Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation wielding the whip right across the province. The government is broke and looking for every penny. There will be strikes. No one forecast this outcome when the right-to-strike crept into the public sector but this is what the democratic process has delivered. Globe and Mail
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Residents launch informed attack on Sunnybrook Plaza plan
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Professional Engineer Elaine Biddiss: Shouts of “Go girl”
A crowd of as many as 500 people filled the William Lea Room Tuesday night (April 28, 2015) for the information meeting organized by Councillor Burnside on the redevelopment of Sunnybrook Plaza. It was a crowd feeling hostile towards the property’s owner RioCan. Many of them were armed and dangerous in a debating sense.
Elaine Biddiss, a youthful professional engineer and mother made a smack down type of presentation in five areas where she said the developer fell short of the City’s expectations. She spoke on her own behalf and as the first resident to “ask questions” she volunteered a couple times to sit down but was greeted with applause and shouts of “Go girl”.
RioCan has proposed to build a two-tower development — 19 and 13 storeys — on the site of the old strip mall. It would have parking for 420 vehicles at both ground level and underground. There are retail spaces at ground level and rental and condominiums as the floors count up. The City’s planner, John Andreesky, and a staff member from the traffic department, were pressed to keep up with the concerns.
Ms Biddiss noted RioCan’s failure to present a plan with mid-rise height towers (eight storeys) and instead ask the City “to dissolve” two bylaws and amend zoning permissions. It was a theme heard from a number of speakers. Some said they had been hood-winked into cooperating in the early stages of a concept with no idea plans would show such high towers. Biddiss enumerated a failure to accept heritage guidelines and instead offer glass towers, to cut retail space by nearly half, to try to install 700 new tenants and no new jobs and to fail to make a serious effort at including parkland.
Midway through this presentation Biddiss struck on the city traffic planning and seemed to suggest that estimates of traffic in 2030 were inadequate. Mr. Andreesky conceded this was an area needing work. He unloosed a bit of a bombshell among north-end residents when he said City staff were recommending the elimination of right turns from westbound Eglinton onto northbound Bayview. The purpose seemed aimed at moving traffic and perhaps finding necessary sidewalk outside the development. This news caused two or three residents north of Eglinton to shout out that the City was “cutting off my neighborhood”.
Speaking after the meeting, Councillor Burnside told the Bulldog he “was encouraged by the large crowd. And the fact that the community spoke with a united voice in their opposition.” He said he was impressed by the high level of knowledge of the speakers as well as the fact that everyone stayed focused on the most important issues “I’m confident our City Planner got the message and hope that RioCan did too.” Many well known people were present. Geoff Kettel and former East York Mayor Alan Redway were seen.
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HMCS Leaside 1944 Christmas card for sale for $35
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Corvette HMCS Leaside served in final days of WW II
Montreal relatives of a Canadian sailor named “Eddie” are offering to sell a good condition greeting card from the HMCS Leaside. The price of $35. Leaside was one of hundreds of Corvettes built to provide protection against submarines during WWII. The ad has been tweeted by RCN Magazine @rcnnewsmage. Here is the Craiglist ad. Leaside had a longer history that most Corvettes. It was also quite checkered and you can read it here at ReadyAyeReady.
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French-Canadian, Polish women in cancer gene leap
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Research at Women’s College Hospital has discovered a genetic mutation strongly linked to hereditary breast cancer among two groups of Canadian women — those of French-Canadian and Polish extraction. The cause of this mutation appears to lie with the so-called founder effect, a dramatic genetic drift that occurs when a new population is created (as in Canada) based on a relatively few individuals known as founders. The Canadian-Polish research team found recurrent mutations in a gene known as RECQL gene among women of Polish descent. Notably, these women did not carry any of the better known breast cancer genes. Researchers also found also that a variation on the RECQL mutation occurred 50 times more frequently among Quebec women with familial breast cancer compared to control subjects. Another RECQL mutation put affected Polish women at a five-fold increased risk for developing breast cancer compared to women without the mutation. While RECQL mutations appear to be quite rare, researchers estimate that up to half of all women who have the mutation will get breast cancer.
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Woman whacks rioting teen son and sends him home
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_gRA7yDyEg&w=500&h=290
A Baltimore mom was trying to tame violence when she realized her son was throwing rocks at police. She was sure to voice her disappointment, as video caught the woman smacking the boy and chasing him when he walked away. The unrest relates a the case of Freddie Gray, a black man who is said to have died in police custody. Rioting has been around looting of liquor stores.
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Thomas Elgie house trimmed to 19th century dimensions
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The 19th century part of the Thomas Elgie family home at 262 Bessborough Dr. now stands as a dwelling much as it looked in the 1840s, when it is said to have been built. None of us was around then of course, and the records aren’t very good, but it appears the two storey home with a chimney on the east side and a wing to the south was what the first builder constructed. The recent work has removed an extension said to have been built in the 1970s. The picture on the right seems to be from the 1950s or 60s before the extension was built. A mediated agreement last year permitted the owner and builder, Matthew Garnet, to subdivide the property to place two new homes on Bessborough with the Elgie home sitting on a third lot. From the shape of the remaining historic home it might sit better longitudinally facing Bessborough. The changes over the years are interesting. The original had its front door under a porch on the east side. Along the way that door became a window and had another placed above it. Pioneer homes did not have many windows. There are steel beams lying on the property which will be used to move the structure but that job appears a distance off. The home has not been underpinned nor is there any foundation waiting for it yet.
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Leaside’s CGS will honour Ugandan moms on Mother’s Day
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Scarves are also baby carriers
This is the third in a series of stories about Leaside’s Children’s Garden School by the South Bayview Bulldog
Among the exciting opportunities established for students at Children’s Garden School is the chance to help in the philanthropic work done for Ugandan children through the charity Children of Hope Uganda. CGS Co-Founder and Principal Marie Bates created The Principal’s Club to give students an introduction to this and other such selfless giving. The Club is a structure within which children learn the meaning of philanthropy and see first hand how small things can make a very big difference. Throughout the year the students work on a number of projects, generally making things with their own hands to sell and generate funds for the chosen charity.
The Principal’s Club has helped a number of charities over the years but since 2012 it has maintained a strong partnership with Children of Hope Uganda. Through their hard work and dedication, CGS students have raised enough money to create a playground and equip classrooms with furniture and supplies for their Ugandan counterparts. Through their Principal’s Club experiences, students are encouraged to think outside of themselves and realize that it is part of our humanity to help those less fortunate and more vulnerable than ourselves. The exercise has been a great success and critically forms a moral framework students may take with them into adulthood.
Club members have been busy thinking about the children in Barlonyo, Uganda for many months now and they wanted to extend their thoughts to the mothers there as well. The Club decided that, instead of the usual separate classroom events for CGS moms, there would be one Mother’s Day Tea and that they would ask CGS moms to donate a colourful scarf for the Ugandan moms. These scarves are deeply valued by Ugandan women for head covering, to carry food and transport babies. The Principal’s Club is making decorations and preparing for the tea over the next few weeks. Everyone is now looking forward to tea, strawberry shortcake and the celebration of motherhood on Friday, May 8, 2015. A final fund-raising event this year for Children of Hope Uganda will be the CGS Lemonade and Cookie Sale in June. The Director of Admission is Kelly Scott who may be contacted at kscott@cgsschool.com and (
Uganda students celebrate new reading material and CGS uniforms
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Boy’s fall leaves question about “child-proof” window
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Wallace Passos
The death of three-year-old Wallace Passos yesterday (Sunday, April 26,, 2015) took place as his sister celebrated her 14th birthday with fiends. No one saw the toddler as he went through a window in the living room on the 17th floor — windows that are supposed to be child proof. There are no balconies on the building. It is not clear just who was home at the time of the accident. A man who is identified by the Toronto Sun told that newspaper that the lad was gone in an instant. Someone cried out that Wallace had fallen. “That was it. It was just all of a sudden like that,” Frank Penner told the Sun. He said party guests ran downstairs calling police on the way. Officers and paramedics responded just after 2 p.m.and made life saving procedures but the boy was dead at hospital.
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Wedding ring lost in Atlantic returned to Mississauga man
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Petition begun to limit height of Bayview/Soudan project
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The development on Bayview Ave between Soudan and Hillsdale Aves is much on the minds of residents in both Wards 22 and 26. An online petition has been started to demand that the so-called Bayview/Soudan development be required to conform to City bylaws, particularly that regarding height. It will be an instructive process as the owners of the property, the Brown Group, calculate the just what they will get from the City’s bottom line on that point. The unknown factor as always is the Ontario Municipal Board. It’s not likely that the rather forlorn properties in question will be left as they are if Brown can make money at five or six storeys. The more likely saw-off might be seven storeys. Meantime, tomorrow night (Tuesday April 28. 2015) a meeting is scheduled for discussion of the redevelopment of the Sunnybrook Plaza. That’s at the William Lea room at 7 p.m. Look for a discussion of the wet building grounds, evidence of the creek that still runs under the property.
